Summertime, and the reading is easy.... Because our unseasonably hot temperatures continued for most of August, I escaped to one of my favorite places, libraries, this month, and started reading some of many holiday mysteries that start appearing now.
Read to Death at the Lakeside Library (Lakeside Library Book 3) by Holly Danvers I had not read either of the first two books in this series, but lakeside seemed like a great place to be in our summer heat, and this book tied in to the recent theme of Midwestern mysteries of a few months ago. Rain Wilmot has found Lofty Pines, Wisconsin, and the Lakeside Library the perfect balm to recover from her tragic past, and as summer gets underway, she's ready to move on with her life, including, perhaps, romance. One of the new activities she's excited about is the new book club the library is sponsoring and which she is hosting in her home. No one expects one of the book club attendees to be murdered, and in a manner shockingly similar to the first book the group is reading. Rain and her best friend, Julia, begin their own investigation, despite the warnings of Julia's brother, Jace, a policeman working the case. And despite Rain and Jace'sgrowing attraction to each other. My verdict: meh. Rain and Julia are investigating for no good reason other than curiosity, they contaminate the murder scene by walking around it (potentially jeopardizing any court case, I would think, or at the very least, compromising the investigation and potentially leaving evidence at the scene). When Rain and Jace's relationship heats up, and he says"Don't ever lie to me again. Do you understand?... Can you promise me that?" she does, and then immediately lies to him. I left a note to myself that I wished he dump her when he found out she lied to him after promising not to do that, but it's a romantic mystery, so naturally he doesn't. And she convinces Julia to lie to her brother to keep their investigation and what they think they've discovered to themselves. They uncover a crucial bit of evidence and keep that from the police. There is a weird instance with a boat owner being friendly and leaving them alone to snoop around his boat for no reason (would anyone do that?), but then the boat owner does a 360-degree about face in his behavior for no reason. At first I thought midwesterners were too nice and naive, then I thought they were too weird, and then I decided the author was at fault. The book was mediocre; it's squeaky clean, but everybody seems to punch each other in the arm (Rain and Jace do that, something I can see a 13-year-old boy doing to a girl her likes, but not a grown man), Rain and Julia slap and tap and punch each other, Julia and her husband do this--I started tracking how many times characters do this to each other because it was that common. If I were a drinking game kind of person, this would be a great action to track, but you'd be drunk by the middle of the book. All in all, I found the mystery a little too uninteresting, the relationships a little too juvenile, the writing a little too inconsistent. It's not bad, it's just not good. And not promising enough that I'll read any more in the series. (Net Galley)
Murder Checks Out (A Blue Ridge Library Mystery) by Victoria Gilbert This begins a multi-month theme of holiday mysteries, and because it's been a blast furnace of a summer, I'm starting with a Christmas mystery. I've read two in this series, and I thought I'd missed quite a few books until I checked. The last I read ended with Amy and Richard's wedding. In this book, published just a couple of years after that one, Amy an d Richard have 5-year-old twins. The author is not letting these characters age naturally, and I expect the twins to be dating and driving cars within a book or two, at this pace. They are unnaturally articulate and read as much older than they're supposed to be, and I found that disconcerting. It's Christmastime, and while Richard and the twins are busy preparing for The Nutcracker Suite, Amy is busy dealing with her mother-in-law, who has decided to spend Christmas with them. That stress is compounded by the murder of a real estate developer, and the main suspect is Amy's brother's husband, Ethan. I love how matter of factly this series deals with the gay couple; they're just family, and none of the characters make any deal about it. Amy's involvement in the investigation is handled much more deftly, and there is none of the insulting and arrogant behavior Rain in the abovementioned book exhibited: Amy tells the sheriff about what clues or gossip she hears. She's part of the investigation but not at the expense of making the professionals appear stupid and incapable, and I hate the mystery writers do that. Disconcerting twins aside, this is a far more pleasant series, and I think I need to catch up with this series. (Net Galley)
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson The explosive popularity of Marie Kondo's decluttering book meant that publishers immediately jumped on the decluttering book bandwagon. This short book is an interesting take on the concept, since it's basic premise is "You don't want to leave a messy house for your children to have to clean up after you die." So Margareta introduces the rest of the world to the Swedish idea of cleaning and decluttering your house as you approach the end of your life. It's a very practical concept a lot of Americans, as terrified of death as we culturally seem to be, what with our incessant worship of, and mad pursuit of, youth, youth culture, and staying young forever. But anyone who has had to clean out a parent's home will recognize the wisdom in her approach to appreciating minimalism as we age, and of making decisions to give away, donate, or throw away the many things we all acquire over a lifetime.
The Vintage Knitting Book, by Future Publishing Collection of vintage-inspired knitting patterns from the 1930s through the 1980s, both large and small, and sure to please vintage fashionistas and knitters wanting to incorporate vintage-inspired projects into their wardrobe.
Murder in the Museum by (Fethering Mystery #4) Simon Brett I enjoy the Fethering mystery series a lot. Mr. Brett has created two very opposite characters in Carol and Jude. Fussy Carol, not particularly likable, and earth mother Jude, eminently likable. Next door neighbors, they have become unlikely good friends. They share parts of their lives (and murder investigations) with each other, but there remain parts that they don't share, and to which the reader is witness, that seems to this reader to be important. Carol is frustrated by not being privy to every part of Jude's life and past, but this is part of what the reader recognizes as a general unhappiness with her own life. And it makes the reader understand Carol even if we don't necessarily like her. In this book, Carol has been invited to be on the Board of Directors of a small museum devoted to the life of a post-World War 1 poet, and what should have been just a minor commitment becomes something else when an old skeleton is u earthed in the garden. When a modern murder occurs, Carol and Jude discover links between the two, and this discovery puts Carol's life in danger. This is an excellent series I recommend. (Audio book)
Death of a Green-Eyed Monster (Hamish MacBeth #34) by M.C. Beaton It's a little wearisome by now--Hamish falls in love at the drop of a hat. But this time, she falls in love with him, and wedding bells are in Hamish's future. I liked this change for Hamish, and I'm glad we finally got to hear why he broke his engagement to Priscilla off all those years ago. The revelation makes me wonder why Hamish has spent 33 books pining after her, though. Anyway, I found this to be one of the better entries in the series, satisfying in both the murder mystery and character development. Even if you've tired of the basic formula of a Hamish MacBeth mystery, I think you will find this book a fast, enjoyable read. (Audio book)
Myths and Mysteries of Archaeology by Susan Johnston Recorded lecture series from a class on archaeological frauds from about 10 years ago. I used to TA a class very similar to this in the 1990s, so I enjoyed the first half of the book, where she deals with common questions asked of archaeologists (what about Piltdown Man? What about Atlantis? etc.), but I disliked the chapter on ESP. Archaeologists deal with material culture, and there is no material culture associated with ESP. What was a competent treatise on frauds or misunderstandings perpetrated by popular culture (Erich von Daniken) took a wrong turn here, and the book didn't recover from it. (Audio book)
Learning the Birds by Susan Fox Rogers I read this book last year, but a search of this blog indicates that I never reviewed it. As a middle-aged female birder, I was naturally interested in a book by a woman who takes up birding in her middle age. But instead of just coming to greater appreciation of nature and of life, instead of working through life's inevitable disappointments, instead of growing, Ms. Rogers substituted an obsession for birding for what were probably unhealthy obsessions in the rest of her life. She falls into a relationship with a man with whom she shares nothing but birding. She obsessively birds, even to the point of faking fishing in order to get a fishing license to go birding on a reservoir, an action (and an attitude) that would have been anathema to the birding community. She compares her binoculars, bought at the Audubon shop in Tucson (where I've shopped myself) to the very expensive binoculars Peter, her new boyfriend, was using, and immediately decided that costlier must be better (chalk up another win for marketing and advertising making us feel bad and inadequate). And then, she recounts when she and Peter try to lure a bird (generally forbidden in birding circles); they go out for long jaunts without food and water (???). At one point, I realized that Peter has no life either (having tragedy in his past that he used birding to avoid coming to terms with), so in one sense, they deserved each other. I found neither of them particularly likable, but Ms. Rogers more so. I wanted to like the book. Ms. Rogers lived here in Tucson for a while, and she mentions local places, like the Audubon shop and the Santa Rita Mountains and Whitewater Draw, places where I have been, places where I have birded. But I didn't. It's self-indulgent, a sad revelation of a life spent lurching from one obsession to another, of someone dissatisfied with life and unwilling to face why that really is. (Net Galley)
